1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a device for use in connection with tubular structures designed for insertion into body passageways such as gastro-intestinal tracts and more particularly relates to a guide device to stiffen the tubular structure and facilitate the insertion of the tubular structure into a body passageway, to permit accurate guidance of the tubular structure within the passageway, and to provide for easy removal of the guide device after the tubular structure has been properly positioned within the passageway.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Tubular structures such as catheters, and tubes for dispensing fluids into or removing gas or fluids from blood vessels, urinary tracts, gastro-intestinal and other cavities of patients are commonly used within the healing arts.
The insertion of such tubular structures into the desired cavity of a patient often requires the negotiation of convoluted and tortuous passageways. The inconsistent requirements that such tubular structures be sufficiently flexible to negotiate the passageways and sufficiently soft to not injure the patient, but at the same time be sufficiently rigid to permit accurate guidance has spawned a plethora of devices designed for the purpose of guiding said tubular structures through the labyrinth of passageways that characterize blood vessels, gastro-intestinal and urinary tracts.
Notwithstanding the recognition in the prior art of the basic perameters necessary to provide an effective and efficient tube guide device, the need for devices combining the properties of stiffness sufficient to facilitate passage of the tubular structure, flexibility sufficient to facilitate guidance of the tubular structure and easy removability of the guide device without the risk of injury to the patient, and without pulling the tubular structure out, has not been fulfilled by prior art devices.
Although numerous patents have been issued covering tube guides, attempts to implement such tube guides in connection with tubular structures acceptable to the medical profession have been largely unsuccessful. The major reasons for such lack of success have been the inability to provide a guide that accomplishes its guide function and may then be easily removed without injury to the patient.
Prior art devices have suffered in part or in whole from various problems which are solved by this invention.
One type of prior art device consists of a teflon coated wire guide. (See publication Wire Guide and Technique for Tube Insertion American Journal of Roentgenology, Volume 107, Pages 150-155, 1969.) This article particularly cautions against leaving the guide in place as the tube enters the duodenum out of fear that the convolutions of the tube will prevent the wire from being withdrawn.
Another prior art device uses a Volkswagon Speedometer cable (see publication Rapid Duodenal Intubation using a Wire Guide), (Digest Diseases, Volume 15, Page 1099, December 1970), the author of this device also cautions against introducing the wire past the stomach for the same reasons as given above.
In the article Duodenal Intubation (see the Lancet June 10, 1972, page 1270) a tube is described in which a series of guide wires are incorporated with a control mechanism to provide guidance of the tube.
Tube insertions consisting of sets of steel wires arranged in columnar fashion and having mechanisms for expanding and contracting the circumference of the column are known.
A device in which the guide is a tube of larger diameter than the tube itself and in which the tube to be passed is positioned longitudinally within the guide tube is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,703,174. In this device after passage the smaller tube is expelled from the guide tube by an injection of water.
Another prior art method discloses a device for passing a small flexible tube by coupling it with a larger stiffer tube through inserting the ends of each tube into a gelatine capsule. U.S. Pat. No. 3,995,628 discloses a catheter device composed of a cylindrical dispenser using a needle secured to a dispenser having a rotatable catheter receptacle to forward the catheter through the needle.
It is the primary object of this invention to provide a low cost, simple tube guide that stiffens the tube which it is desired to pass, is readily guided and is easily removed.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a tube guide that may be used in connection with feeding tubes for infants and which may be passed into the small bowel as far as the jejunum.
It is yet another object of this invention to provide a tube guide that may be used with a variety of prior art tube structures and does not require a specially designed tube structure.
It is still another object of this invention to provide a tube guide which may be rotated in a manner to increase the likelihood of locating the proper channel in which insertion is desired.
It is a still further object of this invention to provide a device for applications in which a tortuous passageway makes removal difficult and which may be partially dissolved in place leaving an easily removed residuum.
It is also an object of this invention to provide a device which may be extended externally to impinge upon a previously supplied gelatin capsule located at its distal end.